Chapter 7: What Kelsey Actually Knew
She was already there when I arrived.
A corner table, hands wrapped around a mug she hadn't drunk from.
She looked smaller than she had on the courthouse steps.
The careful makeup was gone.
She wore a grey sweater and her hair was pulled back simply, and without the performance of that morning she looked like what she probably was — a thirty-one-year-old woman who had made a series of decisions she could no longer outrun.
I sat down across from her.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"I didn't know about the accounts," she said.
"I want you to know that first."
"All right."
"The house — he told me it was an investment property.
That he was putting it in my name for tax reasons.
I didn't ask enough questions." She looked down at her mug.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like something a person tells themselves when they don't want to know the answer," I said.
Not unkindly.
Just honestly.
She flinched.
"Yes."
"Kelsey.
Is the baby Evan's?"
Her hands tightened around the mug.
The question sat between us like something physical.
"I don't know," she said finally.
"I had a test done in March.
Private.
I haven't opened the results."
I looked at her.
"Why not?"
"Because if it's Marcus's, then everything falls apart.
Evan finds out.
Marcus — Marcus has a wife.
Two kids." She looked up.
"And if it's Evan's, then I'm tied to him.
After everything I've seen these past few weeks — the way he talks about you, the things he says he's going to do—" She stopped.
"I'm scared of him, Claire."
The coffee shop moved around us.
A machine steamed milk.
Someone laughed near the door.
"What things?" I said.
"What does he say he's going to do?"
She hesitated.
"Kelsey."
"He said if you didn't take the settlement, he'd find a way to make sure you lost everything anyway.
He said he had people.
That Richard wasn't as clean as he looked." She shook her head.
"I don't know if it's true.
I don't know what's true anymore."
"Did he threaten you?"
A long pause.
"Not directly.
But last week, when I told him I was worried about the legal situation — he looked at me and said, 'You're in this now whether you want to be or not.
Don't forget that.'"
I reached into my bag and placed a small digital recorder on the table between us.
I had turned it on when I sat down.
Kelsey looked at it.
Then at me.
"I'm not recording you to use against you," I said.
"I'm recording this because what you're describing is a man making threats.
And if this goes where I think it's going, you're going to want a record of your own account."
She stared at the recorder for a long moment.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope.
Small.
White.
A lab logo in the corner.
The paternity results.
She set it on the table between us.
Didn't open it.
"I've been carrying this for six weeks," she said.
"I keep thinking I'll open it when I'm ready.
But I don't think I'm ever going to be ready."
I looked at the envelope.
Then at her.
"You don't have to open it today," I said.
"But you do need a lawyer.
Not Hale.
Someone who is actually working for you."
"I can't afford—"
"I'll give you a name.
She's good.
She owes me a favor." I wrote it on a napkin and pushed it across the table.
"Call her today.
Before Evan finds out you met with me."
Kelsey picked up the napkin.
Folded it carefully.
"Why are you helping me?" she said.
I thought about that honestly.
"Because you're not the one who lied to me for fourteen months," I said.
"He is."
She nodded slowly.
Her eyes went bright for a moment and she looked away.
I stood to leave.
"Claire." She said my name like she'd been practicing it.
"What he whispered to me.
Outside the courthouse.
After you walked away."
I stopped.
"He said, 'Don't worry.
She has nothing.
By next week she'll be begging.'" Kelsey looked up at me.
"I want you to know that's when I decided to call you."
I picked up my bag.
"Thank you," I said.
I walked out into the grey morning and called Richard before I reached the car.
"Get a copy of the Delaware company's incorporation documents," I said.
"All the signatories.
Every name."
"Already have them," Richard said.
"Claire — there's a third name on the filing.
Not Evan.
Not Hale."
I stopped on the pavement.
May you like
"Barbara," I said.
"Barbara," he confirmed.
